Hackaday links: March 28, 2010

[Yen] tipped us off about this cardboard record player. It’s a marketing tool that you receive in the mail. Inside the cardboard packaging is a record and the packaging itself can be folded into a player.

Love reading ebooks but miss flipping through the pages? [Marcin Szewczyk] developed this interface that lets you flip a couple of sheets of plastic to turn and fan through pages on the screen.

Augmented reality tat

Not interested in supporting an ink artist or just can’t decide on the design? Perhaps you should get an augmented reality marker tattooed on your arm and have the art digitally added for those who have already made the switch away from using their analog-only eyes. [Thanks DETN8R via Asylum]

oh common the usb powered cpu hot plate “hack” is completely worthless. At least when you use a processor connected to your actual computer you have some of the geek factor of saving the environment (to a degree), but this is just stupid.

@zerth Right – the Z2 is a hell of a lot better than this “open” handheld. And yes, MicroSDIO wireless cards are out there – for another $50-60 more.

A Z2 also has MicroSD either way – so, I’d rather go Z2 than Ben. And it’s cheaper – less than $50 versus $150+ to import, deal with customs forms (each Ben imported into the US needs some FCC form to clear customs as it’s not been FCC tested, apparently), and overseas shipping from China.

The Z2 is a great deal, but has one major drawback, unless I missed something. Is there no peripheral hardware expansion port? On the Nanonote, I could at least plug in a multi I/O adapter giving me keyboard, mouse, serial, parallel, ethernet, and four USB ports(likely overkill) or something as simple and tiny as a micro Bluetooth USB adapter. If it just had some sort of hardware port it could be used for a whole additional set of control applications…

I dunno about the Nano thing. Big claims to open-source, but I couldn’t FIND any schematics. And it looks like it uses CoB, plus a bunch of relatively custom components (case, keyboard, etc.) I guess it’s still “open source” in SOME sense, but if my chances of actually building one are effectively nil, I’d just as soon have something else. It looks more like a typical showcase “reference design”…

It seems like there’s a ‘price floor’ for certain gadgets in a form factor, so that even using the cheapest components possible, a nextbook sized piece of tech will never be able to be cheaper than X. I have no numbers, but I think it’s a concept to explore.

While it’s not the same the cardboard phonograph reminded me of the cut out Archies record on the back a breakfast cereal boxes. In today’s world they would have you go online and enter a promo code to download a mp3 file. 30 years ago I was 23, but don’t recall a cardboard phonograph made available to the general public. Then., like now I may not have been in position the receive on as part of any commercial promotion. The girl in the video razor directed us to is is a honey.